As Long As I'm Around
by FBIEpidemic
Summary: Bruce Wayne promised Cass a place in his home and sometimes... sometimes they both wonder if that was the best thing.


_I'm sorry I haven't posted any Batman stuff in a while... surely I hope this makes up for it? Maybe?_

 _Pls, leave me a review if you enjoyed!_

" _...you'll always have a real family… as long as I'm around."_

On some days Cassandra feels that Bruce had lied to her. He is no family. He is nothing more than a man damaged by the deaths of so many more than just his parents but at the same time, he is so much more than just a man.

Rarely, does she come to understand that the night that he promised such a bold statement he was not Bruce Wayne, nor was he Batman? He was a father. Simply just a man that gazed upon just another child wounded by the hands of a distracted parent and he felt for her. She sees, almost every day, that he is neither Bruce nor Batman. He is simply a father trying his best to give the kids that have called upon him the best that he can. Whenever he can.

Just like every other morning in the manor, Cass wakes up to a cold draft of wind chilling her bare feet. In her sleep, she always manages to pull her blankets off of her feet and waking up to the cold drafts are awful this early in the morning.

"Cass," Dick's crazy bed head peaks into her room, mostly making sure she's modest before he throws her door open. "I can't find my shoes, are they in here?" He does not wait for her to answer, instead, he walks over to her closet and throws the door open. "Did Bruce get you these?" She can't see the shoes in question but Dick isn't really looking for an answer," that man is blind when it comes to shoes." She sees a pair of combat boots being lifted and he makes a face as if he is thinking about wearing them but he just tosses them to the side. He stands back up, allowing her to see his sleek dress pants and pressed white dress shirt," I bet Tim has them!" Dick runs from her room, not even bothering to shut the door.

She knows that covering herself up with blankets and pretending she's dead to the world will do no good. Alfred will come and find her, hassle with her while the boys downstairs wreck havoc on everything holy. Bruce will come looking and she may just give him the heart attack that has just been waiting to happen. So instead of wasting all of their time, she just gets up.

"TODD!"

Something important hits the ground and the sound of ceramic scattering on the floor signals nothing but the arrival of Bruce's wayward children.

"Oh shut it, demon. That was every bit my fault as it was yours." Jason hisses just outside of Cass' door.

She slips hoodie over her head and she smiles when she realizes that this sweater is Jason's.

Every single one of Bruce's children has a thing. Dick collects crazy t-shirts. He has everything from pineapple covered t-shirts to every dad sweater that he can convince Bruce to give him. Jason has a thing for jackets. Leather or jean it doesn't matter. Tim collects converse and mugs. He even has converse with mugs on them, from Stephanie, and a mug with converse on them, also Stephanie. Damien collects pets. That one is fairly straightforward, the kid would adopt frogs if Alfred didn't detest them so much. Cass, she's a collector of the boys. She has two of Tim's mugs on her nightstand. Three of Jason's jackets, one brown leather jacket that Jason doesn't even know he's missing. Dick's favorite 'I heart New York' t-shirt with an anatomical heart. It was custom made.

Cass' collection is far less harmful than the others.

"That's mine!" Dick is standing by her door, Damien slung over his left shoulder kicking and demanding (*cough* whining *cough*) to be let down.

Cass looks down and examines the jacket. She was sure she stole this from Jason. Then it hits her. It's Bruce's. Dick stole it when he took Bruce's shampoo. Jason took it from Dick, saying that if anyone gets to have the 'dad sweater' it's him because he actually got it for Bruce for his birthday. Cass took it from Jason because it's soft.

"Bruce's." She says pulling at the large sweater. It envelops her body and comes down farther than her shorts.

Dick, having trouble fighting Damien, just waves a hand at her. "Whatever, just don't wash it. It won't smell good anymore."

Cass smells the neck of the sweater and nods her understanding. It does smell good. There is a hint of Bruce's aftershave, a scent that she now correlates with warmth and safety. Dick's own personal scent, somehow he smells like ice cream. Just ice cream, no specific type, and Jason. It smells like cigarettes and freshly opened medical gauze. It smells familiar and as twisted as that maybe she likes it.

"Good morning Miss Cassandra, how are you feeling?" Alfred greets her in the hall, chipper as always.

She simply smiles at him, unlike Bruce, Alfred does not like it when she doesn't verbally express her feelings. Luckily, Alfred always forgives everyone is shortcomings.

"That is my shirt," Bruce, half in his room half out, squints at her. He's half dressed, got his dress pants on but his white button up is only half buttoned and showing off his bandaged torso. "How did you get my sweater?"

She moves to his side of the hallway, her nimble fingers working the small buttons of his shirt through the holes. She is finding the best words to explain what she means to say, a technique that Bruce had been teaching her. "Dick took it." She releases him and looks up at him, not sure what to expect. "Jason took from Dick. I took from Jason."

He isn't mad. He simply smirks," would you happen to have stolen my aftershave from any of them? I can't seem to find it."

Cass recalls Tim sneaking past her room a couple of nights ago to Bruce's room. "Tim."

He nods a nod that says 'yeah, guess I should have known that'. Truly, he should have.

Cass descends the stairs, leaving Bruce still standing in the hall and joins her brother's in the kitchen madness. There she sinks into the comfort that she knows how to masterfully work around them.

Jason's elbows are a threat, she must dodge them frequency or else face the same consequences Bruce often does and take an elbow straight to unhealed ribs. Odd, seeing that he is the batman but she had read an article and formulated that perhaps it is Bruce's fatherly side that puts him in danger of these hits. Parents becoming compromised due to their children. Makes sense.

Dick's a little unpredictable but if you watch his feet, Cass can predict what he might do. In these cases, never carry liquids around him and stray from glassware.

Damian and Tim are just best left alone. Never cross their paths and if you do… run.

"Bruce!" Dick chirps happily from his spot at the kitchen table, waving to still half asleep Dark Knight with his wet spoon in his hand sending milk in various direction with each flick of his wrist.

For this effort, Dick gets a singular grunt.

"Coffee." Is the translation Jason gives from behind his own cup. Surprisingly, it's also Jason who rises and meets his adopted father at the table with a fresh cup. "Drink up, Old Man."

Bruce does just that.

Cass looks around her, surrounded by the people that distract her the most in this world and smiles.

"Hey, boy wonder, did the old man never take you to kindergarten? Fucking share!" Other fights erupt just to her left. Jason is halfway across the table, pulling at Dick's sleeve to get some of the older boys cereal. There are a few shouts about age and something even about an adoption but they are tuned out.

Bruce glances at Cass, a huge smile etched across her lips and a smile of his own tugs at his lips. Some days he wonders if taking Cass in is what is best for her. There are more than a few instances in which Bruce knows that he is not the best but days like this… well, he's confident that this is exactly what she needed.


End file.
